Chin targeting – next steps

Our second session of handling with this lovely girl.  She had never worn a harness or collar before and had never been walked on a lead. 

She really loves her fun training sessions and happily comes to them, so we decided to put on her harness for this session. 

She has already had been desensitised to the harness in other sessions. Due to the ongoing work by Greenpeace Kennels, the harness now has a strong association with going out for off lead time in the paddock which is exactly what we want.

She took a little longer to settle down and engage wearing the harness but soon forgot about it.

In our first session, we used quite jerky hand movements when rewarding – she is very tuned in to everything around her and would often startle to sudden movement or noises.  We wanted to do a little desensitisation to jerky hand movements to reduce her startle response.

This session we used less jerky hand movements but start to introduce touch while keeping her chin down.

The idea of chin targeting is to give the animal a say in what is happening.

• Chin down – you can carry on
• Chin lifted up – please stop, I am unsure or uncomfortable

By giving animals a choice, confidence is built. Remember the four C’s:

Calm, Connection, Choices, Confidence

We began training by using a platform for the chin targeting so that she did not have to come so close, in order to build confidence. 

In the first video below, you will see she is listening (sound removed) to the other dogs barking. It takes her a while to zone those out and concentrate.

In this second clip, you will see my hand flat, out to the side. She needs to see where things are coming from so we begin with the hand in sight.  She tries just holding her chin above the blanket so we wait for full engagement.

When I wiggle my hands you can see her watching from the corner of her eyes but her chin remains down.

In the next video clip, you can see her actually checking out my other hand.  Her ears move back in response to movement but most of the time she chooses to keep her chin down. 

In the video clip below you will see the introduction of touch. We deliberately come from the front, making sure she can see the hand as she can startle to unexpected noises or touch. We want her to enjoy the session while we desensitise her to various touches, especially those that would be used in a veterinary setting.

You will see her lift her chin to look at my hand, so we immediately stop as she is communicating she is unsure. She then firmly presses her chin down to re-engage, saying yes you can continue.

The key to this work is patience and small increments. If we rush at this stage we will make her more unsure.

We always end the session on a positive and she gets her well-earned squirt of liver paste 😊

Once we removed the blanket from my knees she came over to me again but did not attempt to put her chin down.  She has already associated the blanket with the chin targeting game which is exactly what we had hoped. The blanket will be able to be used in various settings now.